Archive for
October 24th, 2010

Last week we published a story here at InlandPolitics.com on San Bernardino County Auditor-Controller-Recorder-Tax Collector Larry Walker’s hiring and subsequent promotion of Matt Brown to be his second-in-command.

A position for which Brown possesses no apparent qualification to hold.

Mailers targeting the challenger in the race for San Bernardino County’s 2nd District seat on the Board of Supervisors have drawn fire from both candidates in the race and prompted residents and politicos alike to question who is behind them.

While the mailers target challenger Janice Rutherford, a Fontana council woman, her opponent, incumbent Paul Biane, has denied any connection to the group responsible and denounced the message of one of the mailers as “a despicable and cynical example of class war fare.”

SACRAMENTO – Republicans have spent at least $450,000 in the past year to boost GOP voter registration in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, where Democrats posted large gains two years ago.

The Inland area is a key piece of the GOP’s statewide strategy to win close fights for governor and U.S. Senate next month. In Riverside County, the party is trying to improve the re-election chances of Reps. Ken Calvert and Mary Bono Mack.

GRAND TERRACE – Hot dogs – without sauerkraut – were the main course at an event prompted by fliers that the hosts said were racist for pointing out mayoral candidate Walt Stanckiewitz was born in Germany. The event, held Friday at Stanckiewitz’s La Pasta Italia restaurant, was billed as a way to denounce “racial divisiveness.”

Representatives of a national low income housing nonprofit stand behind a $42.5 million project approved by Rancho Cucamonga in 2007 that became a focal point in the criminal trial of Rancho Cucamonga Councilman Rex Gutierrez.

City Council members approved the project proposed by National Community Renaissance, or National CORE, on a 4-0 vote in August 2007. City Manager Jack Lam, who was the city redevelopment agency”s chairman at the time, Mayor Don Kurth, and redevelopment director Linda Daniels, who opposed the project, were all absent when the vote occurred.

L.A. NOW Southern California — this just in October 23, 2010 | 6:34 pm

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley on Saturday said he has no plans to return $13,000 in contributions to his attorney general’s campaign from an oil company received while his office was prosecuting the firm for violating state environmental laws.

Cooley said his campaign staff is reviewing the matter, however. He emphasized that the donations from Warren E&P Inc., which operates oil wells near the Port of Los Angeles, had no influence on how his office handled the pending case.

In Santa Monica, Boxer urges backers to ‘volunteer’ or ‘give another five bucks.’ In Silicon Valley, Fiorina peps up phone bank workers. In L.A. and San Jose, Whitman targets Asian American votes. Brown is out of sight.

By Seema Mehta and Maeve Reston, Los Angeles Times October 24, 2010

Candidates for California’s statewide offices worked to drum up support Saturday, touting their own records and proposals as they sought to blunt any movement by their opponents.

With early voters already able to cast ballots, what used to be a last-minute flurry to get out the vote has been extended dramatically, and the candidates were vying for any advantage Saturday.

In making the case why they ought to be California’s next governor, Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman have slashed at the seven-year tenure of the man they hope to replace, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who in turn has slapped at each of them as he defends his priorities in office.

California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman took her campaign to Asian-American voters statewide Saturday as polls showed the former eBay chief executive slipping behind her Democratic opponent with just more than a week left in the race.

Whitman began a day of public appearances at a Vietnamese restaurant in San Jose owned by a Republican supporter. The GOP candidate also was scheduled to make appearances Saturday afternoon in Los Angeles Koreatown and in the heavily Asian-American San Gabriel Valley.

With double-digit unemployment, a housing crisis and an electorate worried about the economy, California’s gubernatorial candidates promise voters they can pull California out of recession and put people to work.

Though the effect any one politician could have on the economy is likely minimal, both Republican Meg Whitman and Democrat Jerry Brown are promising to try.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, in the toughest reelection battle she has faced in decades, on Saturday painted her Republican opponent Carly Fiorina as an extremist on environmental issues who supports new offshore oil drilling.

The two-sided sheet of stiff paper is labeled “Voting Guide for Republicans” and purports to advise GOP-registered voters how they should cast ballots this year.

Several Republicans are “recommendations” of the “California Voter Guide,” such as Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado and state Sen. Tony Strickland, who’s running for state controller. But it also recommends re-election for the Democratic state treasurer, Bill Lockyer.

The 45th Congressional District race is among closely watched contests that could affect Obama’s policies.

By Jean Merl, Los Angeles Times October 24, 2010

About three months after entertainer-turned-congressman Sonny Bono died in a skiing accident in January 1998, his widow Mary resoundingly won a crowded special election to succeed him in the Riverside County district. Now remarried to another congressman, Republican Rep. Mary Bono Mack is facing an aggressive reelection challenge from Palm Springs’ Democratic mayor, Steve Pougnet.

The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of Likely Voters shows Brown picking up 48% of the vote, while Whitman draws support from 42%. Four percent (4%) prefer some other candidate, and six percent (6%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)